Canada’s military presence near Libya part help, part feel-good

Canadians who believe that their military’s primary purpose should not be to fight wars, but fervently want their troops to only be Boy Scouts, should be pleased by Ottawa’s evolving commitment to the crisis in Libya.

With China, Russia, Turkey and Germany having already strongly rejected any kind of military intervention — which could result in unpredictable and unwelcome outcomes — the West will have considerable trouble gathering a coalition of the willing to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya. But western countries want to be seen to be helping in other ways.

So, just in time to give the Harper government a wee bit of an election boost, Canadian sailors and air force personnel will be drawn into international humanitarian operations in the Maghreb.

Canada’s part in potential Libyan humanitarian operations are to be much smaller than what its armed forces did in Haiti after last winter’s earthquake. But there will still be a feel-good factor.

International agencies such as the UN are already beginning to make urgent appeals for help to airlift penniless black Africans trapped there or on its borders to return them to their home countries on the south side of the Sahara.

If the Libyan conflict persists, the flow of such refugees and displaced Libyan and foreign nationals to Tunisia and Egypt will also result in a need for food, water, shelter and medicine for the camps that are already being established on Libya’s borders or in areas already “liberated” by insurgents.

Its potential role in aiding those in distress in Libya will be dwarfed by that of the U.S. air force and European nations, but Canada has a massive C-17 transport and a pair of smaller C-130J Hercules transports on standby in Malta, which is only 300 kilometres away from Tripoli.

Curiously, given the kerfuffle in Canada over the F-35 fighter jet purchase, these new transports are available to help out, as the C-17 helped out in Haiti, because they were purchased quickly without competitive bid processes.

With those aircraft, Canada should be able to move about 250 refugees or about 100,000 kilograms of cargo a day.

The HMCS Charlottetown can help a little on the aid side, too. But with its berths full to the gunwales, relatively little capacity to carry freight and only one ancient Sea King helicopter, its humanitarian role may be limited to ferrying small numbers of refugees to neighbouring countries. Still, it could perform a useful role by helping to enforce international sanctions on Libya.

More than anything, Canada’s limited naval options underscore the critical need for Ottawa to approve long-standing plans to build navy supply ships with significant cargo capacity and flight decks that can handle several modern helicopters at once.

With continuing uncertainty about what may result in Libya, Canada has time to consider its options.

Despite Defence Minister Peter MacKay’s optimistic announcement on Tuesday that the Charlottetown will be off Libyan waters within a week, with 6,400 kilometres of sea to cross and the Atlantic usually ferocious at this time of year, it is far more likely to take a fortnight for the frigate to be in position.

The Charlottetown was dispatched with the understanding that it may be required to stay in the region for six or seven months. That would give Canada a future voice in whatever the West decides to do not only about Libya, but future upheavals that may erupt in Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen.

Because the Canadian navy is thinly stretched and very short of money to conduct operations, it may jeopardize the tentative deployment of another warship to the Indian Ocean this fall to assist in dealing with the growing problem of piracy.

While tackling pirates would also have the backing of most Canadians — nothing for them beats seeing young men and women with red Maple Leaf patches on their shoulders providing relief to people in distress.

It is not only the right thing to do; the images produced may provide a timely political payoff for the Harper government.

Matthew Fisher is Postmedia's international affairs columnist and Canada's longest serving foreign correspondent. He has lived and worked abroad for 31 years in Europe, the Middle East, the Far East and... read more, more recently, Afghanistan. His assignments have taken him to 162 countries, all U.S. states, Canadian provinces and territories, above the North Pole and to an iceberg over the Magnetic North Pole. During his travels he has been an eyewitness to 19 wars and conflicts. The personal highlight of his career as a roaming correspondent was when he attended Nelson Mandela's inauguration in Pretoria.View author's profile